


Fight It Out On This Line

by dome_epais



Series: If It Takes All Summer [1]
Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:39:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dome_epais/pseuds/dome_epais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sledge thinks about how they look to other people. Two men with corporal’s stripes and matching ribbons, sitting together and eating. Must have served together, must be friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight It Out On This Line

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Gen. Ulysses S. Grant: _"I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."_

The day came and Sledge signed everywhere and now he is his own man again.

Just like that. He’s a civilian again, wandering off Pendleton for the afternoon just because he doesn’t need to show a pass to do it. The train shipping them away isn’t until next morning, and he won’t feel right going back home without some kind of story about the California weather.

Sledge is still in his uniform, his two chevrons naming him as a corporal, the mixed-up colors and ribbons they were all awarded once the Marines could get to the paperwork. Nothing special about him, nothing really documenting what he’d seen and done in the last few years. He was just like any other soldier he could see in their stiff, starched collars and ties. 

The entire war sluiced away, just like that, like he never sat around in mud as his dungarees rotted right away from his skin.

Sledge smokes cigarettes more, now, walking from place to place and looking around. Packing and lighting and smoking a pipe is a sit-down, keep-your-hands-busy sort of task, and Sledge likes to move around without fear of getting sniped or challenged for a password. He’s restless to get home; half tempted to start walking right down the highway this instant and hitch all the way to Alabama, because he knows he’ll never be able to sleep away the hours before they all leave. 

Sledge finishes his smoke right outside a nice, chrome-and-vinyl diner and takes it as a sign to go inside. He finds his way to a booth and smiles at the waitress, who’s a few years older but nice-looking, apparently resigned to whatever a Marine could dream up to say to her.

Sledge just says, “No thank you, I don’t need the menu. Can I just have some coffee and a burger?”

“What sort of burger?” she asks warily, searching for the punch line. Must have been a long time since she wasn’t propositioned in some way, all the boys coming back from oversees all at once like they have been. “We can cook the meat however you like, add a few toppings.”

“Whatever’s going to taste the most American,” he assures her. “If it has lettuce that’s not wilted, it’ll make my day.”

“Right,” she says, and her terse mouth softens a little. More kindly, she asks, “Just back?”

He smiles at her. It’s the polite company smile that his mother drilled right into his skull all his life, and remembering how it works took a long time once they got off the transport ship. He says, “Maybe some water, too, please.”

She smiles a little more back at him and goes off; pretty soon, a glass of ice water is tinkling in front of him, the coffee poured and steaming. When the bitter smell comes to him, Sledge decides he doesn’t actually want the coffee, but he treats it with cream and sugar just for the luxury of it.

Sledge sips some water, rubbing the back of his neck ruefully. His story about the weather can be that after all this time in perpetual summer and rains, he still burns up under the sun. Not like Snafu, who just sways back and forth over how deeply tanned he looks at any time.

Waiting for his food, Sledge pulls a few much-handled folds of paper from his breast pocket, and a pencil. His Bible is back on base, held together with string and prayer, but he can still make a few notes. It’s what he does when he can’t help thinking about everything.

 _After being back in civilization for months, I still can’t fathom the miracle of condensation on a glass of water. It means the water’s colder than the room, not half-boiled in your canteen,_ he notes down, careful with his handwriting.

That sparks a new thought, so he adds: _The longer I spend on US soil, the more I remember how I used to behave in a previous life. It comes back in little fit and starts. Carefully writing out essays, being polite. Putting down my weapons. Waking up slowly, like Rip Van Winkle, only without missing the war._

“Still writing,” comes a voice above his bowed head.

“Still haven’t handed it over to the Japs, so, I think we’re safe,” Sledge answers, smirking down at his papers. They’re getting a little grease-spotted and worn, from the diner table and a hundred other surfaces, some of his neat pencil marks going smudged.

Snafu slides into the seat opposite, never one for asking permission about these things. They shared foxholes and hauled each other up from the mud so many times, it seems redundant to ask before sharing anything else. He’s in the middle of his own cigarette, his long dark fingers hooking under his tie to loosen the knot. Must have been walking past and seen Sledge in the window or something.

Sledge takes another sip of his water, keeps his hand out when he sets it down. His thumb moves across the glass, making streaks in the condensation beaded there. Still amazed at the feel of drinking something colder than his own mouth. He looks at Snafu, those wide eyes caught on the glass, too, and wonders if Snafu’s thinking the same thing. Not that he’s ever known what the man’s thinking.

“Here you go,” the waitress says, giving Sledge a moment to clear away his papers before setting down a large burger. She turns to Snafu, her eyes making a quick assessment as she asks, “And can I get you anything?”

Snafu smiles at her, and it’s not exactly how it looked in the war. It’s not how he smiled as he killed the enemy, or when he was surprised into it by a joke, or when he was trying to intimidate the new meat. Snafu smiles like he’s been told girls like it when you smile. It’s a more careful baring of teeth with nothing genuinely pleasant behind it.

Sledge can see some kind of lewd suggestion forming up on Snafu’s tongue, and he doesn’t want to subject the waitress to any more of that. So he says, “Get him some pop and fries and we’ll split it,” with a grin for her and a warning look for Snafu.

She goes off and Snafu keeps his eyes on her, then he looks out the window. Oceanside has palm trees and blinding sun, but it’s windy out there, not too hot. It could almost be Pavuvu except for the sidewalks and proper buildings. 

Sledge works on cutting his burger in half. He pushes Snafu’s part to the far end of the plate and starts adding all the condiments he can think of to his own. The first bite is good; he couldn’t find things like this outside of the base mess in China, and he’s savoring his first taste of home as a civilian. He might never eat rice for the rest of his life.

Snafu’s watching him enjoy his meal, regarding Sledge’s offering to him with parted lips. He picks it up, obviously, never one to turn down good chow. His tie’s come completely loose, and Sledge wants to make a crack about how he’s out of regulation, but Snafu’s a civilian, too.

They sit and eat and Sledge tries to deflect Snafu introducing himself to the waitress – by his real first name, no less – and Sledge thinks about how they look to other people. Two men with corporal’s stripes and matching ribbons, sitting together and eating. Must have served together, must be friends. Equals.

Sledge watches as Snafu add hot sauce to his share of the fries. He’s never felt like he and Snafu were equals. They’ve walked the same paths, seen the same things, but they’ve never been on even footing. 

Most of the time in China waiting for his enlistment to run out passed in a blur of a different culture and dragging Snafu around. Sledge focused on getting Snafu away from crowds when he confused the races he was dealing with and went looking for a fight. It kept Sledge in line, having someone else to look after. It kept Snafu in line when he couldn’t walk straight anymore, and they spent hours getting lost on second-hand Chinese directions late at night, off-base and alone.

Sledge held onto himself, kept mostly sober with his attitude under control and didn’t rebel against the abrupt, strictly-enforced military posturing they found waiting for them after Okinawa. He took to PT runs in the morning better than Snafu, anyway; Snafu, who scrubbed drums for no man and smoked like they’d trained him for it instead of mortars. 

Snafu, who wound up peeling potatoes every other afternoon because he’d mouthed off one way or another and now there was time for officers to focus on those things. Sledge started to wonder what had possessed Snafu to join up at all. During battle, he couldn’t imagine a man better-suited to turning force on his enemies and meaning it, but there? Orders and discipline suited Snafu like a tub of water suited a surprised cat.

But those six months passed and no one kicked Snafu out dishonorably, not with their discharges just a few weeks away. And here they are in the U.S., eating burgers and drinking cold water and waiting to get on a train.

Sledge sometimes dreams that he’s seeing out of Snafu’s eyes, hearing Snafu’s thoughts from the inside. But since he never knows what the man’s thinking, the dreams are always confused and echoing. When he wakes from those dreams, he spends his day observing Snafu interact with the post-war world, wondering what it seems like to him.

That’s what the notes are for, sort of. Sledge writes down him thoughts on the war because they’re hard to pin down, now that he’s away from the crushing pressure of waiting to die. He’s trying to capture his feelings about going home with some kind of coherence, so that maybe someday he can show them to Snafu.

He’ll show Snafu all his notes and ask, _Is that what it was like for you? Is that what you were feeling?_ Because then maybe he’ll get Snafu to talk to him about it, and he’ll finally understand something about the man who saved his life a hundred times at least.

They finish their food and Sledge drinks his coffee all at once. It’s gone a little too cold, but he never was one to leave the table with leftovers. He pays, certain that Snafu has no intention of offering, and they get up. 

Sledge says goodbye to the waitress, and they’re both grateful for the pleasant interaction, a novelty on both sides. Snafu leaves them to it and starts lighting up two cigarettes in the doorway.

He shoulders his way outside when he sees Sledge coming, and hands over one of the cigarettes when they’re on the sidewalk. It’s still breezy and nice outside, and Sledge can still feel the prickle of sunburn gathering on the back of his neck.

“You’re out of regulation,” Sledge says, for something to do. He waves his two fingers, cigarette held between them, indicates Snafu’s loose tie.

Snafu smiles – like from the war, when he was being intimidating on purpose, trying to stare Sledge down. “I look like I give a shit?” He tugs the tie into even more disarray, gets a little ash on himself. No, he doesn’t look like he gives a shit.

“They’ll never let you back on base looking like that,” Sledge warns him, but he doesn’t care either. They’re walking, rambling around the palm trees, not particular in the direction of base. They have till midnight, but they’ll need to be up in time for the train. They’ve fought wars on less sleep.

A little flock of women come toward them, all done-up and talking together. A few are wearing rings, but not all of them. Sledge doesn’t bother to stop Snafu as he steps forward, settles for something between a smile and a leer. “Hel- _loooo_. I’m Meriell Shelton,” he starts, and gets some giggles.

Sledge stands back to let him do as he pleases. He’s going home tomorrow, to a house with no dog in it, to the rest of his life that he never dared hope to see. He has no idea what that’s going to be like.

He doesn’t know anything about Snafu Shelton, not really. He knows what he looks like with a tommy gun in his hands, screaming for the Japs to die. He knows that the man’s not ashamed to have what must be hundreds of gold teeth in his bag, he knows Snafu doesn’t have a chance with any girl between here and Louisiana.

Sledge still thinks Snafu might be a friend. A good friend, closer in some ways than Sid. He thinks he’ll go home, and anything that goes wrong, he’ll just write it down and send Snafu a letter. He’ll get a letter back and it’ll say, _You think that’s hard? Shut the fuck up or they’ll send you right back, you idiot,_ and civilian life won’t seem so bad.

He feels like an idiot two days later when he wakes up and he realizes he never got the man’s address. By then, Snafu’s gone, stolen off in the night and melting into the dark, probably wearing that same vague smile that means you’ll never want to know what he thinks is so funny.


End file.
